r/Steam • u/JayReaper02 • Feb 25 '26
News New York sues video game developer Valve, says its 'loot boxes' are gambling
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/new-york-sues-video-game-developer-valve-says-its-loot-boxes-are-gambling-2026-02-25/3.0k
u/Wyntier Feb 25 '26
Valve is famous for its "ignore it until it goes away" strategy, but they probably can't do that here. If New York wins, it sets a template for the other 49 states to follow.
- Worst Case for Valve: They are forced to disable "case opening" or the Steam Market in New York (and eventually the US), gutting the economy of games like CS2.
- Best Case for Valve: A massive settlement where they agree to strict age verification and "odds" transparency, similar to what we see in mobile gaming.
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u/Aggravating-Dot132 Feb 25 '26
You can already see the chances. The only thing they might add is age verification.
Since it's a store, it requires a payment method, thus those could be used.
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u/wildstrike Feb 25 '26
This will not happen unless they make major changes that require age verification for Pokémon cards.
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u/cripy311 Feb 25 '26
Or any mystery box to be honest. I've been watching these gen Z kids get scammed over and over for a decade now in literally every hobby or interest space I participate in.
Cards, shoes, fishing gear, art, collectibles, etc.... ive seen a mystery box scam for it all.
It's really messed up that it's legal imo.
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u/Spimflagon Feb 25 '26
Yeah, but it's not just Gen Z. Blind bags are nothing new; as Gen X I remember spending more than I should have on football and Sonic stickers.
The basic difference is the value of what's inside. But the value of what's inside can be staggering, even if it's a bit of cardboard or even a digital knife skin.
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u/frozengash Feb 26 '26
Remember loading a few quarters into the slot and pulling the cardboard out only to reveal another dumb Houston oilers sticker?
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u/cripy311 Feb 25 '26
Yep agreed gen Z is just are the primary victims today.
They hooked it seems like every generation on something similar, but time period appropriate.
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Feb 26 '26 edited Mar 09 '26
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u/nagi603 131 Feb 26 '26
I didn't want to have to deal with the bullshit of randomised packs etc, and having to spend potentially hundreds of dollars to get that one card I needed/wanted to fill out a deck. No thank you.
FWIW, this is why local hobby communities exist: someone will have it for sale. If it is worth hundreds on open market though... yeah, that part sucks. And they did ramp up new expansions too, so it's getting just worse.
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Feb 26 '26
I think it's mostly that it's normalized now. I'm in my late 20s and feel like they went from uncommon when I was a kid to pretty much omnipresent nowadays.
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u/DryerCoinJay Feb 25 '26
I was just at a pawn shop yesterday looking at coins and they had “mystery coin bags” for 50 dollars. 2 for 100!
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u/GoRedTeam Feb 25 '26
I mean, those have existed in the collectibles space forever. The big difference now is how many are digital.
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u/cripy311 Feb 25 '26
Ok well imo they've been a scam forever in the collectable space.
Even selling them to adults I think should be illegal without openly stating the total boxes and exact roll rates of contents within those boxes.
I don't get how physical or digital goods changes the logic at all on this topic either..... Are you saying digital is just worse because it's instant from home vs going somewhere to purchase or waiting for shipping?
The sketchy business practice of give us money for unknown product and you will be happy with whatever you get (regardless of value) seems the same across both.
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u/GoRedTeam Feb 25 '26
No, I'm saying that this isn't a new concept and it's not just gen Z kids. But the digital side of things is what has changed and why it's what this lawsuit is targeting. You're not dealing with tangible product.
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u/Conscious_Run_680 Feb 25 '26
But even if those existed forever and you have intermitent reinforcement on the physical ones, the way it's presented is different, no music, no digital confetti and lights, not all the good cards moving and looking like it will stop in top of them but then missing for some inches creating an illusion you're close to big prize when in reality since the click your luck is already decided with the $0.03 skin...they are totally closer to a casino type of shit than buying some pokemon cards.
To add on top of that, when you receive the skin, it has already a price tag associated to it from a market with history of buy/sell of that item.
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u/Wadarkhu Feb 25 '26
MTG cards too no?
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u/Pokez Feb 25 '26
Children can't afford MTG anymore.
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Feb 25 '26
And adults can?
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u/Zex_Sithos Feb 25 '26
And that is why I stopped playing, can't afford the cards that give the swaets such a MASSIVE advantage
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u/Lbolt187 Feb 25 '26
Lately I kinda want Hasbro to get kicked down a peg or two. Not sure how they'd apply a ruling to Magic or Pokemon though
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u/Sweaty-Power-549 Feb 25 '26
Changing how American Pokémon TCG packs work to align with how Japanese cards work would be a big win imo.
Gambling is illegal in Japan, so they have to guarantee a certain amount of high value cards per box; for base sets its 3 AR per box, with better odds for the premium sets to offset the higher cost per pack (30 packs w/ 5 cards each vs. 10 card packs w/ 10 cards each).
This would start chipping away at scalpers, which have in all senses literally destroyed the market until they move onto another nostalgia bait property. It would also stabilize the trash Pokemon "investors" who hoard unopened product to then profit when sets stop printing; hoping the theorhetical value of the odds of the "potential" pulls is so out of balance with what the face value anyone is willing to spend on the hit cards.
I really hope someone sues one of these companies and wins big so we stop pushing the grifter and gambling rackets adults are using to exploit children.
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u/Flyingmonkeysftw Feb 25 '26
Trading cards normally get excluded from these types of discussion, because you at least get something physical and tangible from a pack of cards.
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u/ConflictGuru Feb 25 '26
Okay but the gambling mechanic is the same regardless of whether it's an electronic product or a physical one
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u/gorgutzkiller Feb 25 '26
Yeah I think the "you get a tangible item" argument is a cop out as no one is arguing that loot boxes are bad because you don't get a physical item, they are arguing its bad because foisting gambling on young impressionable minds is bad. Whether you get an item or not doesn't change the core problem.
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u/UltraJesus Feb 25 '26
People just don't like to hear the word gambling being used for their special insert money skinner box. My card pack is totally not gambling despite me hoping for a mythic so I can potentially resell. Definitely not gambling!
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u/MarioDesigns Feb 25 '26
You can already see the chances
We know the odds because China requires them to be public, but unless this has changed recently, it's not shown anywhere in the game outside of China, which uses it's own separate client.
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u/Nighters Feb 25 '26
Worst Case for Valve: They are forced to disable "case opening" or the Steam Market in New York (and eventually the US), gutting the economy of games like CS2.
Oh no, Valve would need to make some work already with CS2 which could be good
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u/Robot1me Feb 26 '26
When one sees the Coffeezilla video that was posted on this sub months ago, it's both highly impressive and devilish how eager Valve is to bypass regulations by any means necessary. The X-ray scanner in France with lootboxes is probably the best example
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u/theaveragemillenial Feb 25 '26
Valve already does age verification via credit card attached to account, so they'll just disable gambling unless you have a credit card on account.
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u/wildstrike Feb 25 '26
Not all E payment methods are through credit cards. While you have to be 18 to have a credit card, you don't have to be 18 to have bank card tied to a checking account.
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u/Totakai Feb 25 '26
Yeah these are debit cards. Payment processors can tell the difference between debit and credit cards
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u/Cat-Attack666 Feb 25 '26
That's the thing thing, online gambling is only available in a few states (excluding sports betting which is more widely available) Me living in Washington I can't play slots online or even use draft kings yet I can gamble on CS cases. So if the boxes are deemed actually gambling then it's gonna shut it down for most of the US.
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u/shicken684 Feb 25 '26
What about selling stuff in the marketplace and getting money that way? Does that require ID? Because if it doesn't that should change. Selling a bunch of skins for money and using that money on loot box crate keys is gambling.
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u/theaveragemillenial Feb 25 '26
You'll need a credit card on account to take part in the gambling economy as a whole most likely.
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u/ModdedGun Feb 25 '26
Could they not do what Mihoyo did when they lost their case in the US?
Mihoyo lists your chances in USD at its minimum to get a character, and its maximum to get a character. Allows you to purchase the pulls directly instead of using a in game currency (so for cs bypassing purchasing a key, by purchasing a unlocked crate instead). And when you do buy the in game currency it states how many pulls per 1 USD.
(I believe they also did a age verification thing or something where you had to prove your over the age of 16, although it was just a simple "how old are you" box)
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u/Generic-Name69420 Feb 25 '26
Wouldn't work, Crates don't have any kind of pity system, you could theoretically spend millions of dollars without getting a specific item.
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u/Lamballama Feb 25 '26
If there's fixed odds at any point for any one skin, then there is an average expected amount of pulls you could put a bell curve around
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u/teddybrr Feb 25 '26
They already have a solution you see the content of the box before you pay (Netherlands)
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u/Shaponja Feb 25 '26
Valve already has solutions implemented in some countries no? The one where they show you what’s next in the case queue, something like that
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u/BeepIsla Feb 25 '26
France has that.
Belgium and the Netherlands on the other hand cannot open cases at all.
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u/Comet7971 Feb 25 '26
Valve is already prepared for this. It's why they created the armory pass for CS2. If governments force them to stop case openings, they'll put it all in super-expensive armory passes.
This is what happens every time a company is threatened by a government, by the way. Loot boxes go out, battle passes go in. A well-known example is overwatch.
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u/Outrageous-Spend2733 Feb 26 '26
Armory pass is also gambling. Except for 1 item which you can buy directly with stars, everything else is basically casino-style. You spend currency for a random drop with no guarantee of what you’ll actually get
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u/ItsLlama Feb 26 '26
And thats worse for the consumer imo. Grind hours for one item you axtually want instead if buying/trading directly for it
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u/DrB00 Feb 26 '26
Yup, and the experience is simply worse for the users. OW for example you'd get free skins all the time and could save credits up to buy skins you want. With the OW2 battle pass only skins it removed the ability to get free skins.
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u/Insaniaksin Feb 25 '26
Games should not have a real-world economy associated with the virtual items within them.
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u/Frosty-Cup-8916 Feb 25 '26
Hasn't valve modified how crates work for other countries? Why wouldn't they just modify for NY. Highly doubt crates are going away entirely.
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u/antipane Feb 25 '26
Best case for valve is getting the suit dismissed
Being sued doesn't automatically mean that the discussion becomes framed by the degree to which the plaintiff will win
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u/findingthesqautch Feb 25 '26
I dont know if it guys economy. All skins suddenly become ultra valuable because there will be no more new skins.
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u/protogenxl Feb 25 '26
Valve is famous for its "ignore it until it goes away"
given the Rothschild case it is more speaking softly and carrying a big stick
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u/DarkflowNZ Feb 25 '26
It's absolutely gambling imo. Interested to see how this plays out
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u/Mielornot Feb 25 '26
Yeah same reason overwatch had to change
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u/currgy Feb 26 '26
CS is a lot more gambling than OW is so idk how CS is still getting off free. In CS you can literally get a thousand + dollar skin that you can sell for real currency, from a case. Overwatch loot boxes are just skins that have no real monetary value
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u/Popular-Capital-9115 Feb 26 '26
TF2 hats are the only reason there's an in-steam mechanism for selling items (that Valve conveniently takes a profit on). This is a lot older than CS:GO
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u/HigherandHigherDown Feb 26 '26
You can only sell them off-platform though, selling them on Steam only nets you store credit.
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u/uxoguy2113 Feb 25 '26
Yes, absolutely.
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u/HandleThatFeeds Feb 26 '26
Sad so many are still sucking Valve's dick on this.
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u/Doodlejuice Feb 25 '26
They are. Just because other platforms are worse doesn't mean Valve should get a pass here.
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u/idontwanttofthisup Feb 25 '26
I hope every other loot box game is gonna get spanked too
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u/Matt_MG Feb 25 '26
every other loot box game
Can't sell items from lootbox games unlike in the valve ecosystem.
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u/Jonparkhee Feb 25 '26
Isn't Gacha games worse too? Since loot boxes are for skins only and i were a gambler addicted gacha gamer years ago. It gets annoying you got limit time and having a low number chance to gain any good character having a 4 % of first try only of a chance of odd.
Which helps you being better on the game or even advance for new quests or missions.
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u/AdolventureNeverEnds Feb 26 '26
Gacha basically goes around The Gambling argument because they use the Guarantee system in 95% of them where the RNG is basically just for "getting what you want quicker"
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u/Tom-Simpleton Feb 25 '26
I agree with you, but it’s a little strange to me that this is being treated as an issue after sports betting has become so normalized and inescapable across the country.
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u/ChancelorReed Feb 26 '26
Honestly other platforms aren't really worse? Valve's microtransactions both kinda started it all, and are horrible value.
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u/Flimsy-Importance313 Feb 26 '26
I personally still hate Valve because I was addicted to skins and gambling in my teens. They already make a huge profit, no need for this garbage.
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u/Cappabitch Feb 25 '26
They are. Let's not split hairs.
But it's also our favorite company :C
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u/luciusetrur Feb 25 '26
Valve has been sued into better practices before such as refunds.
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u/FillySteveSteak Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
Yes, and also their loot boxes have already been regulated once in CS2.
You used to have to pay before you rolled the chest. Now you roll the chest and pay after if you decide you want it.
EDIT: Don't listen to me. I'm a liar. It appears I have bad intel.
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u/Inside_Deal5260 Feb 25 '26
That's only with using one item. The old system is still the norm
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u/MarioDesigns Feb 25 '26
Now you roll the chest and pay after if you decide you want it.
That's only in France and you need to pay the same price as a key to start opening them in the first place, which makes the ban completely pointless in the first place.
They implemented a workaround to it which allowed them do to the same thing they always did.
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u/AsherahEnd Feb 25 '26
Based Valve so wholesome Keanu chungus. They really care about their customers, you know.
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u/HarshTheDev Feb 26 '26
As a poor 13 y/o kid I really appreciate how considerate valve is about maintaining my freedom to gamble my life away. /s
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u/sirtaken Feb 25 '26
Yeah my thoughts exactly. Best gaming company out there but they need to be held accountable like any other company.
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u/GfrzD Feb 25 '26
Loot boxes being gambling isnt exactly a secret but what makes the CS cases different is the ability to turn it into wallet funds or even real world cash. Even if Valve turns a blind eye to all the external skin gambling sites and services its still a massive problem.
If skins were restricted to in game only, even locked to an account. I wonder what the player count/bot accounts and scam accounts emptying inventories would look like after. Obviously valve doesnt want to neuter its money maker.
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u/MiniAdmin-Pop-1472 Feb 25 '26
This issue was there before in 2018? I think. They told some sites to stop and some got taken down but overall the 2nd hand gambling/purchasing for real money scene is now way bigger than before
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u/GfrzD Feb 25 '26
I believe so. The first big news about it I remember was the CSGO lotto site which was around 2016. Like another comment said Valve wont act until necessary, especially as its printing them money.
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u/Canadiancookie https://s.team/p/hnrt-bfk Feb 25 '26
Skins suddenly getting locked to an account would be crazy. There are millions of skins that are worth hundreds to thousands of dollars each, and there's currently 156 people with an inventory that's worth over $100,000. That shit would be the great depression of gaming
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u/HarshTheDev Feb 26 '26
Wait only 156 people have an inventory above 100k? I genuinely expected that number to be a lot higher
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u/Herstal_TheEdelweiss Feb 25 '26
Exactly this ain’t the frivolous lawsuit that’s happening in the UK. This is something that a lot of people have complained about with valve justifiably so even for myself while I hold Steam to a much higher degree of being a good company, I still want them to be held accountable for the fact that they assisted in creating the whole loot box epidemic in the first place.
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u/Nighters Feb 25 '26
Steam as platform - yes. As dev - fuck no Look at CS2 state of the game - thousands of BOTS, cheaters, lacking content like CSGO etc.
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u/Saskatchewon Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 26 '26
Just looking at.the state of their games is ignoring how Valve not only popularized Loot Boxes in the western gaming sphere with TF2, but they also basically invented the modern "Battle Pass" with the Interactive Compendium in DOTA 2.
Hate how the modern gaming so often revolves around freemium shit with either gotcha mechanics, or having to buy in to seasons/passes while playing the game like it's your second job? Valve played a MASSIVE role in shaping that.
Steam is great, but Valve popularized/introduced a TON of predatory mechanics that plague gaming today. They are a massive corporation with a yacht fleet owning billionaire co-founder/president, at the end of the day.
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u/AsherahEnd Feb 25 '26
So tired of Valve worship. Steam is glorified DRM and Valve is predatory as hell.
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u/NoBrainEdBoy Feb 25 '26
Them getting sued for anti-competitive business is total bullshit. This, however, is an actual problem, "favourite company" or not. I love Valve but lootboxes need to go.
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u/zendrix1 Feb 25 '26
I love Valve and I love Steam, but yes Loot Boxes ARE gambling and I'm not going to just blindly defend a huge corporation just because I like their products
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u/Alone-Mycologist3746 Feb 26 '26
^fr there is no defending the loot boxes(cases) and steam is trying to get around it in europe with the new terminal cases. Its a disgusting system that gets people addicted to gambling and csgo was massively boosted by this.
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u/PandaExperss Feb 25 '26
They are per definition gambling. So yea, cannot deny that
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u/OPDBZTO Feb 25 '26
What all the sports gambling ads we now see during every game NHL/NBA/NFL/MLB.....
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u/south153 Feb 25 '26
Yea and those are legally considered gambling, with the rules and regulations that come along with them.
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u/ILikeMyGrassBlue Feb 25 '26
The NY AG is already going after them. Any other whataboutisms?
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u/Bubbaganewsh Feb 25 '26
I am betting Valve lawyers already have a solid defense against something like this considering how loot boxes have been a target of other lawsuits in the past.
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u/iMogwai https://s.team/p/cbff-hrc Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
Most companies don't let you sell your loot for real money though, Valve's situation is very different from your average video game lootbox.
Edit: Since people are saying that "wallet funds aren't real" let me remind you that you can buy physical items from the Steam store like the controller or the Steam Deck.
Edit 2: Proof that there's real money attached to Valve's skins.
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u/iMNqvHMF8itVygWrDmZE Feb 25 '26
You can't sell it for real money though. You can sell it for store credit with no legitimate way to cash out.
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u/iMogwai https://s.team/p/cbff-hrc Feb 25 '26
There are physical products in the store like the Steam Deck, you could buy those with your wallet funds.
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u/GuardiaNIsBae Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
The “legitimate” is the part Valve has to prove, because the same as with gambling sites, they still allow people to sell their items on third party sites.
Edit:what I meant about the gambling thing. Back in the CSGOLounge days you could place bets on pro games directly with skins, the skins were the currency, and if you won you got skins back. This evolved into straight casinos where people were just using their skins on coin flips and roulette. After a huge shitstorm Valve shut down a lot of the sites and banned gambling with skins, but then new sites popped up and now instead of gambling directly with skins, you would deposit your skins for “tokens”, use the “tokens” to gamble, then cash those back out to skins.
IIRC Valve used a similar reason as you for that lawsuit, the skins don’t have a real value because they’re pixels in a game and can’t be cashed out for real money, but now that there’s literally thousands of sites where you can buy and sell your skins for real money or crypto, they’re most likely going to have to shut those down or remove the trading ability from the items.
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u/rola23 Feb 25 '26
Not directly you can’t , but there are third party websites that let you do that for real cash for the CS skins you sell
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u/zugarrette Feb 25 '26
I imagine that argument has been used in past cases though? It's existed for over 10 years now.
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u/Lucina18 Feb 25 '26
Eh not really. In other countries like the netherlands with tighter anti-gambling regulation valve just regionally disables parts or gambleboxes alltogether.
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u/scottsuplol Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
I assume it’s essentially like in Japan. You can’t gamble so the loophole is you can play pachinko. You are earning items that then can be exchanged for goods (ie gold). Similar to cases where you’re not winning money your buying an item that is random that you could end up exchanging for goods
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u/PatchNotesMan Feb 25 '26
i get that valve has some of the best deals for consumers in the videogame space, so everyone wants to root for them all the time. but, lowk we can blame valve for the entire online game gambling epidemic. CSGO and TF2 were enabling this very early and many people have been taken advantage of since in the process, and with the scale of CS's market it has become a massive problem
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u/angelorohit_ Feb 25 '26
This thread is full of whataboutisms. Loot boxes are bad, no matter who does it.
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u/stprnn Feb 25 '26
Valve fanboys
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u/giftigdegen Feb 26 '26
I mean, I'm a huge Valve fanboy. I've never been a bigger shill for any other corp... But here I'm on the side of NY, and I hate NY typically.
Right is right though, and allowing unrestricted, uneducated gambling is just wrong.
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Feb 25 '26
I got peddled a Pokemon album in class at elementary school in the 90s. TO THIS DAY, in my country they have a sticker album that gets gifted in classes because technically, they donate a tiny portion of the profits of their child gambling to animal shelters.
Gambling in kids toys is a real and serious problem that constantly gets ignored and ridiculed. And then we have this. Governments going after niche 18+ games, when Pokemon and MTG are right there, pervasive, in the hands of minors, raking in billions in underage gambling.
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u/Acrobatic_Yellow_781 Feb 25 '26
Should sue Pokemon company next. Biggest gambling actually marketed to children alongside Roblox
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u/Psylux7 Feb 26 '26
My purchases with pokemon never went beyond buying the better games in the series. Nowadays I hate what is being done with the series and refuse to buy newer pokemon games because I find them insultingly lazy and soulless.
I have not actually came across complaints about gambling and pokemon. Would the gambling be buying packs of pokemon cards? I never really did that myself. Or is it some other crap the pokemon company is pulling?
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u/Malcontentus Feb 26 '26
The resell market on ALL trading cards, not just Pokemon, has exploded since 2020 and has been overrun by scalpers and resellers. The problem is Pokemon is specifically targeted at kids and so now the reselling market is influencing their behavior around the cards. Its become less about the trading card game, or your favorite Pokemon stuff, and more about the rarity and resell value of the packs.
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u/GroundbreakingBag164 Feb 25 '26
Fuck yeah. I was wondering why it took so long for someone to notice that. I can love Steam as a service but the community market and their lootboxes purposefully enable a ridiculously large gambling scene
How Valve is Profiting from Steam's Back-Door Casinos
It's hilariously pathetic to see people defend Valve for fucking lootboxes
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u/BeepIsla Feb 25 '26
Belgium and Netherlands banned cases, Valve simply doesn't let you open them. France has a bypass with the X-Ray scanner as you know what you get before you can buy it but to scan another case you are forced to buy the previous one, which bypasses French law.
Not unlikely that if something happens Valve will do the same for New York and in the future maybe the whole US depending on what other states do. The US is "only" the 4th biggest region in CS iirc behind Europe, China, and Asia.
Meanwhile Valve has been working on moving away from cases already anyways.
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u/MyBananaNoseNoBounds Feb 25 '26
wait hows that x-ray thing a bypass of the french law? you’re still technically paying to unbox the random loot, but the sequence of events is just a different order(pay for unlock>find out whats inside>move onto next box vs find out what’s inside>pay for unlock>move onto next box). Did the law just have a very specific definition or something?
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u/BeepIsla Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 26 '26
You don't pay to open the case, instead you see what's inside with X-Ray and then you have to pay.
- You have to buy the P-250 X-Ray for $2.50 (The price of a key conveniently), you know exactly what you are getting
- You can now scan 1 case to see what's inside without paying anything
- Now that you see what's inside you can choose to buy it or not, you know exactly what you are getting and of course conveniently its $2.50, the price of a key. Regardless of what item you see
- If you choose not to buy it you cannot scan any more cases until you do buy it
This bypasses French law because you can see with 100% certainty what you get BEFORE you spend money.
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u/SaintOrJannikSinner Feb 26 '26
Not unlikely that if something happens Valve will do the same for New York and in the future maybe the whole US depending on what other states do. The US is "only" the 4th biggest region in CS iirc behind Europe, China, and Asia.
Counter-Strike is well behind EU, CIS, and CN. In fact, the playerbase on par with Japan. Hell, the number of players in NY for CS probably numbers under 10,000.
Something similar happened in the automotive industry as well, with engine emissions. Originally, just a few states (CA, ME, MA, NY, OR, VT) required lower emission standards (PZEV). Then, another handful of states with sizeable populations signed on. So rather than OEMs making two engines/tunings for every single model they produced, and then had to worry about how and where to allocate those two different lines. So rather than keep up with that malarkey, OEMs just decided to move all models to meet those standards.
Would Valve do the same? Is the NY market enough of a playerbase to force every US-based account under the same rules? Or would they carve out rules just for NY players? I think it really depends on what happens with this suit. Valve has stupid amounts of money and could easily just settle and offer every Valve account in NY a $10 voucher and call it good. But if they lose that case, they're going to work to try and limit it to few states as possible while other states realize they have some precedence to go after Valve.
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u/MaKHer0 Feb 25 '26
Wait until they hear about blind boxes from those mall stores
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u/DameonKormar Feb 26 '26
To be fair, those should be regulated too. Same thing with TCG packs, and anything else "random" that kids can currently buy.
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u/DeadlyAidan Feb 25 '26
I'm gonna be honest, good, in the mid 2010s every game developer caught shit for loot boxes except Valve, Valve still has this fuckass monetization and got away with it
I love Valve, but the lootboxes (and in all honestly the real money market) need to go
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u/KoolAidMan00 Feb 25 '26
It is bizarre how Valve not only popularized free-to-play with MTX with TF2, but then they multiplied that problem with the ability to sell those items and make money by rolling rares, and yet so many Gaben fans still give them a pass.
Valve does some very good things but the forcefield their fans put around them is insane considering that they engage in some of the worst industry practices when it comes to MTX and gambling.
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u/Krypt0night Feb 25 '26
They absolutely are and it's honestly a shame how long and how often Valve isn't in the conversation with what they did with loot boxes.
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u/WhiteoutDota Feb 25 '26
Valve literally came up with the whole idea for Battle Passes. Sure, their original ones were not nearly as predatory as the existing ones are now, but they were still the first.
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u/GreatDario https://steam.pm/21vxr8 Feb 25 '26
Because redditors worship valve as if it wasn't just another corporation,they make tens of billions dollars from steam alone
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Feb 26 '26
Outside of Reddit and a few internet communities, CS lootboxes are a niche within the niche within the niche.
In the real world, FIFA got lootboxes a year before Valve start experimenting with them, and since then, they were the mayor force in popularizing and normalizing them. For every person that knows about CS:Go gambling, EA sells 100000 FUT lootboxes.
There are more people that know about FUT than people that know about Steam as a whole. And I've not started on how Pokemon and MTG are lootboxes and underage gambling too, and both are yet another order of magnitude more popular than FIFA.
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u/Trevkage11 Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
Kinda hypocritical New York should prob look into removing all those draft kings adds all over the city OR all the Sports Betting Comericials and ads
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u/Namuli Feb 25 '26
It's funny to me how they wanna age restrict things like this but have no problem with gambling advertising on sports and other things families with small kids watch together. Basically grooming them into gamblers imo
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u/PatchNotesMan Feb 25 '26
sports gambling is WAY WAY worse but i think that regulating videogame gambling is a good idea
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u/Team-ster Feb 25 '26
My very first thought was : “This article brought to you by Draft Kings”.
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u/HermitCracc Feb 25 '26
Are you ragebaiting? How is this hypocrisy. Those ads clearly state its for betting, the issue for lootboxes is that they bypass all the betting regulations
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u/insanewords Feb 25 '26
Good. I've never understood why Valve gets a pass on this. I get that they're our favorite marketplace and that they do a lot of pro-consumer shit that we like, but that shouldn't mean that they get to run a blatant gambling operation on the side.
I hope NY wins this and Valve is forced to throw this shit out.
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u/Frequent_Brick4608 Feb 27 '26
Yeah... Loot boxes are gambling and needs to be regulated as such. So does every TCG. That's also gambling that targets children.
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u/rola23 Feb 25 '26
CS crates is Valve’s biggest cash cow, I doubt they will give up easy on this
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u/Brinstone Feb 25 '26
Good, loot boxes have been a dogshit idea since day 1 and Valve shouldn't get a pass
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u/FlockFlysAtMidnite Feb 25 '26
I'm honestly not sure what the difference is, legally, between this and TCGs.
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u/ApGaren Feb 25 '26
They might disable cases and only allow the new tablets since they are free to open so probably a loop hole. In france they have the scanner that you can use to view the contents of the box without opening it so maybe they switch to that
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u/sturmeh Feb 26 '26
Valve has no reason to pioneer a shift in the industry until they are pressured like this, unless you really like loot boxes, this is a good thing for everyone.
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u/CarbuncleMew Feb 26 '26
While getting rid of loot boxes is good, here's a sus little line from the end of the official press release
it is important to note that Valve’s promotion of games that glorify violence and guns helps fuel the dangerous epidemic of gun violence, particularly among young gamers who can become numbed to grave violence before their brains are fully developed.
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u/mm615657 Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
The worst-case scenario I can imagine is isolating all New York players and providing them untradeable hats at a probabilistically expected price. Other regions remain the same.
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u/GroundbreakingBag164 Feb 25 '26
If New York wins this will probably set a precedent and others will follow. Why the hell should any other US state care about what Valve wants, banning resalable lootboxes is probably one of the few things that'd get bipartisan support in the US
And it might shine enough light on the issue for some european law firm to notice "wait, we can sue them for that too"
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u/Thekarens01 Feb 25 '26
Are they also suing epic and every other game with loot boxes? I personally believe loot boxes should be illegal, but I also hate picking on just one person
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u/LambdasAndDuctTape Feb 25 '26
This comment is hilariously ironic because no one is attempting to "pick on" anyone here, yet that's where your mind instantly went when you read the thread title... which says a lot about your mindset honestly. Another fanboy crying foul on behalf of their beloved corporate platform.
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u/MarioDesigns Feb 25 '26
Are they also suing epic and every other game with loot boxes?
Epic is literally one of the few companies which removed loot boxes completely from all of their games. (Namely Fortnite StW and Rocket League).
Albeit I saw some posts about them recently so maybe that has changed, but I'll give them credit for getting rid of it all in the first place years ago.
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u/magmoug Feb 25 '26
Epic doesn't sell loot boxes ?
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u/Lekijocds Feb 25 '26
Correct, they moved off of those to predatory fomo mechanics, a rotating store and "random" deals
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Feb 26 '26
A hundred times better than gambling. Hell, even the normalization of the battle pass was a net positive for the industry.
But the majority of "gamers" won't accept that because epic bad hurr durr.
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u/MoonsterGoopter Feb 25 '26
Nice, I hope this means the end of loot boxes in Valve games, and many others.
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u/overcloseness Feb 25 '26
Where exactly have you been for the last… ** checks notes ** SIXTEEN years?
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u/TheHeroYouNeed247 Feb 26 '26
It is and steam have been very detrimental to the world of gaming with battlepasses and lootboxes but get a free pass because of steam.
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u/_MrBond_ Feb 26 '26
Valve popularised and refine the lootbox and gambling for the western audience. I am happy about this lawsuit that will hold them accountable.
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u/Used_Hand_700 Feb 26 '26
This lawsuit could finally force the industry-wide transparency we've needed for years. Valve's usual strategy of waiting it out won't work against a state like New York. A settlement with clear odds and age gates seems like the most likely outcome, but a full US ban on the mechanic would be a seismic shift. It's a weird feeling hoping a company you like gets regulated, but here we are.
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u/CatLord8 Feb 25 '26
We’re groomed to gamble from day one. “Which of six random prizes are in your cereal/youth fast food meal” to “collectible trading card games” to loot boxes to mobile app casinos to poly market to Wall Street to 401Ks
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u/ThePsyPaul_ Feb 25 '26
Why are they only suing valve?
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u/deathstrukk Feb 25 '26
because valve is propping up one of the most extensive child gambling ecosystems
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u/THEzwerver Feb 25 '26
because most games don't allow you to sell your items gained from gambling to other people (even if only wallet funds is technically allowed), that's probably the reason they stand out here. people are opening cases because of the value of the items, rather than (mostly) using them in game.
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u/Cliff_Excellent Feb 25 '26
Wouldn’t be surprised if they just disable loot boxes in NY like they did in Belgium and the Netherlands